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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809815">because your smile still remains</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinthFeather/pseuds/NinthFeather'>NinthFeather</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Oh Valley of Plenty [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Returning from Presumed Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Memory Loss, No one actually dies in this fic but death and mourning get discussed a lot, POV Outsider, Post-Summertime Record, Reunions, Terminal Illnesses, Wheelchairs, and just like in canon several people are presumed dead</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:48:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24809815</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinthFeather/pseuds/NinthFeather</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiroshi's two-years missing son shows up on his doorstep. He's a year older than his doctors ever thought he'd ever be. He also has grey hair now. It's...a lot to take in.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Haruka's father and a post-Summertime Record reunion.</em>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kokonose Haruka &amp; Kokonose Haruka's Father</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Oh Valley of Plenty [8]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769428</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Quality Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>because your smile still remains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabHawk/gifts">FabHawk</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic is for FabHawk, who wanted Haruka interacting with his father post-Summertime Record. Please note that I play pretty fast and loose with canon, which is to say that everything except the songs is basically “guidelines” to me, but this takes place in a timeline that’s basically “the music timeline except everyone lives at the end like in the anime because I like Ayano.”</p>
<p>Haruka’s dad doesn’t have a canon name, so I gave him one for convenience. Title is from Will Stetson’s English translyrics for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odX5nYw78Cs">“Remind Blue.”</a></p>
<p>Thanks to FabHawk for beta-ing something I wrote for her, because that’s just how awesome she is. Warnings in the end note!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Loving a terminally ill person was a balance of hope and realism. Hiroshi learned that with his wife and relearning it with his child was like having his heart ripped out all over again. At first, it was easy to believe that his child might beat the odds, might survive what his mother didn’t, but eventually, Hiroshi had to be realistic.</p>
<p>So, while he kept pressuring the doctor for more treatments and looked for other doctors with new ideas…he’d also had Haruka write up a will. Haruka had, of course, smiled through the whole thing, even while Hiroshi tried not to cry in front of a stranger.</p>
<p>He’d trusted Haruka with information about his own health all those years ago because he thought knowing might…help. He sometimes wondered if that was a mistake. It was so easy to overthink and second-guess, when your time with a person you loved was running out.</p>
<p>Then, on August 15<sup>th</sup>, Haruka went missing, and suddenly, everything turned inside out.</p>
<p>When your child was missing, Hiroshi learned, you never knew for sure if they were dead or alive. You always had an image of them out there, somewhere, unchanged from the last time you saw them, living a life without you. You also had an image of them dead by a roadside somewhere. You never knew which image was correct, and it kept you up at night.</p>
<p>Hiroshi knew that Haruka couldn’t have lasted more than a week without his medications. Some part of him still screamed that his child might be out there, somewhere, waiting for his dad to rescue him.</p>
<p>In the end, he waited a month to hold a funeral, but he did hold it. It was a small affair, mostly family and a few people from the hospital. None of Haruka’s friends came—one had gone missing along with him, and another had killed herself on the same day. The last one still alive had shut himself up in his house and was refusing calls. According to his sister, he wouldn’t even open the boxes of light novels and manga that Haruka had willed to him.</p>
<p>On one level, Hiroshi understood. On another, he was incredibly frustrated. Didn’t his incredible, selfless son deserve this much? One friend, at his funeral?</p>
<p>He tried not to be bitter. He tried to reach out to Kisaragi, but all he got were increasingly embarrassed responses from his younger sister. Eventually, he gave up.</p>
<p>He threw himself into his work, tried to move on, became the kind of distant, weird researcher Aoi and Haruka often accused him of being. He wrecked a good half of his friendships and didn’t talk to his co-workers outside of job-related matters for months. But he’d done this before, when Aoi died, and his oldest friends knew what was coming. They waited him out and were there for him when he finally broke.</p>
<p>After two years passed, he could honestly say that he was…not okay. Okay wasn’t the right word. He’d lost a spouse and a son and that was more than one person should have to bear in a lifetime. But he was moving forward again.</p>
<p>And then the world turned inside out on him once again.</p>
<p>It was two weeks after the anniversary of Haruka’s disappearance. This year was better than last—instead of spending the day working, he’d gone for a grave visit with old Mrs. Enomoto. They’d thought about inviting Dr. Tateyama, too, but Hiroshi was still a little angry that he hadn’t come to Haruka’s funeral, and anyhow Mrs. Enomoto’s calls to him never went through properly.</p>
<p>By now, the grief was more like an ache than an open wound. He could look at the reminders of how his home used to belong to three people instead of one and think “This place is really too big for me,” instead of just starting to cry.</p>
<p>He still wasn’t that much of a social butterfly, though, so he was surprised to hear d a knock on the door around 6:30 pm.</p>
<p>He always had regretted not having a peephole in the door. He’d wanted to install one, once, but both Aoi and Haruka had told him he wasn’t good enough at DIY, and he’d never bothered having a workman over to put one in. So, in the end, he had to open the door and hope that whoever was knocking wasn’t a murderer or a door-to-door salesperson.</p>
<p>It…was not.</p>
<p>Hiroshi blinked. Then tried, again, to make sense of what he was seeing.</p>
<p>There were two teenagers in the doorway, one seated in a hospital-issue wheelchair and one standing behind him. The one who was standing looked somewhat familiar, although Hiroshi couldn’t quite place him. But the one sitting in the wheelchair…</p>
<p>His hair was grey, and there was an odd pattern on his face that looked almost like a tattoo. He was thinner than Hiroshi remembered. But in every other way possible, this person looked <em>exactly</em> like Haruka.</p>
<p>“Hi, Dad,” he said, and it was Haruka’s voice, too.</p>
<p>Hiroshi didn’t understand.</p>
<p>This couldn’t be real. He’d had dreams like this, of course, but there was no way...even if Haruka had been kidnapped, even if the kidnappers had meant to keep him alive….</p>
<p>The doctors had given Haruka  a year to live a little under two years ago. </p>
<p>“I don’t <em>understand,</em>” he said aloud. </p>
<p>His voice was probably shaking. He wasn’t sure anymore.</p>
<p>“Yeah, join the club,” said the other teenager. Thin, dark-eyed, wearing a bright red jersey--it took Hiroshi a while to place him.</p>
<p>“Kisaragi?” he managed.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Kisaragi said. “And this really is Haruka. Things have gotten...weird. Can we come in?”</p>
<p>Too stunned to do otherwise, Hiroshi stepped aside and motioned for them to come in.</p>
<p>“Why wouldn’t it be me?” Haruka asked, all innocent curiosity.</p>
<p>“We had a funeral, moron,” Kisaragi said. “And you were...sick.”</p>
<p>“Oh, yeah,” Haruka said. “I...kind of remember? It’s blurry.”</p>
<p>“That’s fine,” Kisaragi said. “You don’t have to remember everything.”</p>
<p>“You...what?” Hiroshi asked, shutting the door behind them as he scrambled to keep up.</p>
<p>Kisaragi slipped off his shoes at the <em>genkan</em>. “Haruka’s memory is a mess,” he said.</p>
<p>Haruka himself was also wearing shoes, which he took off and passed to Kisaragi. “Yeah, uh, it’s a long story.”</p>
<p>“What <em>happened?”</em> Hiroshi asked.</p>
<p>Kisaragi gave him a careful look. “Why don’t we sit down for this?”</p>
<p>They settled in the living room—Haruka still in his wheelchair, wedged awkwardly next to Kisaragi on the recliner, as Hiroshi took the couch.</p>
<p>“So, uh, how well did you know Tateyama Kenjirou?” Kisaragi asked.</p>
<p>“He never returned our calls,” Hiroshi said. “I don’t think I’ve seen him since, uh—” He blinked, realizing. “Haruka, Dr. Tateyama’s daughter—”</p>
<p>“She’s fine, too,” Kisaragi interrupted. “He faked her suicide.”</p>
<p>“He—<em>what?</em>”</p>
<p>“And kidnapped me,” Haruka added. “And Takane.”</p>
<p>Hiroshi was on his feet before he realized it. “No, seriously, <em>what</em>?”</p>
<p>Haruka blinked at him, wide-eyed.</p>
<p>“All this time—<em>two years—</em>you were right <em>here—” </em>Hiroshi probably sounded hysterical. He didn’t care.</p>
<p>Haruka held up his hands. “He had us in, uh—Shintarou, what’s the word—”</p>
<p>“Medically induced coma.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, that! He wasn’t hurting us!”</p>
<p>Something in Hiroshi’s chest loosened, even as he heard his voice rise in pitch. “He still let us think you were <em>dead</em>!”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Haruka said, quiet. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“Don’t apologize,” Hiroshi said. “It wasn’t your fault, so don’t apologize.”</p>
<p>He crossed the room, then leaned down to wrap his arms around his son. To his surprise, Haruka stood, meeting him halfway and squeezing him tightly enough to ache.</p>
<p>After a few seconds, Hiroshi gently lowered him back toward the chair, then released the embrace.</p>
<p>“So, the wheelchair is until you finish up PT from the coma?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Actually, the doctors think I should keep using one,” Haruka said.</p>
<p>“The doctors don’t really know <em>what</em> Dr. Tateyama was doing, but whatever it was, Haruka’s heart is doing better,” Kisaragi put in. “They suggested that he avoid basically any strain and they wanted access to his full medical records, but they sounded a lot more optimistic about his, uh, outlook than they were before.”</p>
<p>“So, Tateyama stole my son for two years and fixed his heart problem?” Hiroshi asked numbly.</p>
<p>“Maybe?” Kisaragi said. “I think they wanted to run more tests.”</p>
<p>“Do you think whatever he did is also what changed your hair color?” Hiroshi asked.</p>
<p>Kisaragi and Haruka exchanged a look. Hiroshi was pretty sure that meant ‘it was actually hair dye but we don’t want Haruka’s dad mad at us.’</p>
<p>“So, do the police have Tateyama in custody?” Hiroshi asked.</p>
<p>“About that!” Haruka said. “He’s, uh—he’s—”</p>
<p>“He’s dead,” Kisaragi said. “He did something stupid, he died, and it wasn’t any of our faults, but we don’t have evidence of that, so we’d <em>really</em> like it if you didn’t get the police involved.”</p>
<p>“Who’s this ‘we’?” Hiroshi asked.</p>
<p>“Me, my sister, Haruka, Takane, Ayano, Ayano’s 12-year-old aunt, her newly-traumatized friend, Ayano’s siblings, and their friend who lives in the woods,” Kisaragi said. “I think that’s everyone. Haruka, is that everyone?”</p>
<p>“I have memory problems; you have a perfect memory,” Haruka said. “Why are you asking me?”</p>
<p>“Mean,” Kisaragi complained.</p>
<p>“Why were all of you involved?” Hiroshi asked.</p>
<p>“There were several more attempted kidnappings,” Kisaragi said. “Some attempted murder thrown in for flavor. It was a fun two days. If I think about them more, I’ll have to have a panic attack in your bathroom and I’d really rather not.”</p>
<p>Hiroshi glanced at Haruka, whose expression was completely serious. Not exaggerating, then.</p>
<p>“Okay, fine,” Hiroshi said. “I, uh, Haruka, your bedroom—”</p>
<p>“I know, you followed the will,” Haruka said. “And I doubt you’ve had time to clean it regularly. It’s fine. It’s been…rough, after everything. I miss you, but I also don’t wanna leave the others alone. So, I’ve been staying with Ayano and Shintarou and Takane at their house, for now.”</p>
<p>“You’re still welcome to come home if you want,” Hiroshi said. “Your room won’t be ready right away, but I can have it cleaned up pretty soon.”</p>
<p>“I’d like that,” Haruka said. “I want to stay over sometimes. But I’m 18, you know! And I have a lot to figure out, now.”</p>
<p>Yes, yes he did. A whole life ahead of him, even, if those doctors were correct in their assessments.</p>
<p>“Still, I’ve missed you,” Hiroshi said. “I want to see as much of you as I can.”</p>
<p>“You can always visit us, too,” Kisaragi said.</p>
<p>Both of them looked at him in surprise.</p>
<p>Kisaragi flushed. “Well, he can,” he said. “I’m sure the others won’t mind, if we ask.”</p>
<p>“Kano probably will,” Haruka said.</p>
<p>“Kano can kiss my—” Kisaragi broke off. “And Ayano can handle him, anyhow.”</p>
<p>Hiroshi smiled. “I’ll take you up on that, I think. But in the meantime, can you stay awhile tonight?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Haruka said. “The others won’t expect us back until later.”</p>
<p>“You haven’t had dinner yet, have you?” Hiroshi asked, already knowing how his son would answer.</p>
<p>“What does it matter?” Haruka asked. “You know I’m always hungry. What are you making?”</p>
<p>Hiroshi got up to look through the fridge and reveled in the opportunity to cook for his son again. There was still a tiny part of him that thought this might be a dream, and he still had so many questions. But he could savor this, without letting himself doubt or worry, just for now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warnings for discussion of terminal illness, end-of-life preparations, child death, kidnapping, and comas, as well as mentions of suicide and murder. Also, the narrator briefly believes himself to be hallucinating.</p>
<p>Yes, I know there’s some debate about how old Haruka is. In my fics, he’s 18, because I decided he was. Similarly, my characterization of Haruka’s dad does not necessarily cleave perfectly to the LN, because I don’t do well with discussion of terminal illness (yes I realize the irony, I can handle writing it but it’s a pretty hard squick for me in media) so I didn’t reread the relevant LN portions and mostly used the wiki.</p>
<p>For anyone curious, Hiroshi’s name is written (天 ) and means “sky” or “heavens.” I chose it to fit Haruka’s association with sky motifs and to be alliterative with his name.</p>
<p>Finally, yes, Haruka uses a wheelchair, yes, he can stand; ambulatory wheelchair users exist and given Haruka’s canon health situation it’s my headcanon that he can stand and walk short distances.</p>
<p>Thank you for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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